“Are you sure you know what to do…?”
These are things I say on repeat in my sleep.
Yet, some lessons are best learned the hard way. And by the hard way in this instance, think “teen girl hard way.” Oohhh, the drama.
Our daughter let me know well in advance she was invited to a birthday party. We planned for it, albeit due to other commitments, she had to make a fashionably (pun intended, keep reading…) late appearance.
The evening of the event, I waited in the car until I saw her safely enter the location.
As I began driving home, my phone started dinging with text alerts. (Don’t worry, I didn’t look at the messages until I arrived home.)
When I finally opened up the messaging waiting for my prompt attention and saw they were all from my daughter, my first thought was, “What did she forget this time?”
But that wasn’t at all the issue.
“I’m so uncomfortable,” the message read. “Everyone’s in dresses.”
After hours of running errands, I dropped our daughter off at the party wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was miserably hot outside, after all.
“Well, I didn’t get the memo on that,” was my reply. And apparently, neither did she.
“Can you bring me a dress?” she asked next.
“No,” I said, unwilling to add yet another errand to our day. “Why are they all in dresses?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
I requested she send me a picture of the invitation; the very party invitation she received, read and told me about. The pretty invite was adorned with colorful flowers and the party details, and guess what?
She had not read the invitation all the way through. It seemed as though she stopped after the date and time.
Under that tidbit of info it read, “Garden Party attire requested.”
I may have giggled a bit when I read that part.
“It’s a Garden Party,” I replied. “You didn’t read it.”
“Bruh,” she said. “I’m gonna cry. They all stared at me when I walked in.”
Oh, the horror of being not only late, but the only one not dressed for the occasion.
For those of you who also may not be familiar with a Garden Party attire, here is the Google AI explanation, “A garden party dress code typically calls for semi-formal or dressy-casual attire suitable for an outdoor setting, with an emphasis on light, bright, and floral patterns. Think: daytime elegance with a touch of playfulness.”
She got the playfulness part right in her shorts and shirt, but definitely missed out on the elegance.
From my high horse, I felt vindicated in my relentless pursuit to get my kids to pay attention to details because obviously, details matter. And if a bad grade due to not reading instructions wasn’t encouragement enough to pay attention, then being the only girl not wearing a pretty dress at a Sweet 16 party certainly is.
In an attempt to make her feel better about her lack of attention to detail, rather than cry, I encouraged her to laugh about it.
“Just tell them you aren’t following directions or reading anything on summer break!”
Her next message was to request I pick her up later than originally planned. Clearly she was no longer “uncomfortable,” but when the next theme party invitation comes, we will see if she learned from this fashion faux pas.
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